If the Industrial DE has been processed for use in filters it has been made ineffective for use as a pest control. Food grade DE is what is used for pest control.

kimmq is kimmsr

Absolutely use food grade. Industrial DE is effective, but it has been treated with chemicals that are dangerous to the environment. If you have pets or a koi pond, it could be very dangerous for them. In some cases, depending on the chemical additives used, it will even destroy your garden and lawn.

Can you also use Food grade version on pool filters or it is not safe as it can cut the liners? Does food grade DE work on all types of beetles? we get a lot of black beetles around the pool area by the 1000s sometimes.. not sure where they come from? How do I dust them?

Any organic ways to kill weeds and others?

You can spot kill weeds with vinegar - I use it on walkways made from pavers. The only organic way I am aware of is to use cracked corn (checken feed) which is applied nuder compost or mulch in the bed. It takes about 3 years for the corn to break down enough to release the chemicals that help control weeds. It's not 100% but it does cut down the weeds dramatically and it also helps control fungal infections. We find it helpful in our rose beds.

Don't know why you want to kill a hornet's nest. All the residents, except the mated queens, die at the end of the season.

And ground nesting bees don't bother anyone. They don't sting. and they are useful pollinators.

Most ants are a mixed blessing as they can be a serious nuisance indoors but, outdoors, they are useful at helping to tidy the environment.
Unless of course, you tell me you're trying to limit fire ants.
P.S. Getting rid of ants -- or anything else -- won't work; others will take their place in short order.

Diatomaceous Earth comes from the dead bodies of some prehistoric aquatics known as diatoms which existed in water, mostly sea. Food grade DE is not processed so the sharp edges that naturally are present are there to slice into the insects body. Industrial grade, or pool grade, is processed to eliminate those sharp edges and make the material better at filtering. Food grade DE cannot be used in filters.

Wetting DE makes it much less effective, so always apply it dry.

Cracked corn does nothing to help manage unwanted ("weeds") plant growth but Corn Gluten Meal is an effective pre emergent that can help stop those seeds from establishing themselves. The CGM also is a good source of organic Nitrogen. The affect of the CGM last about 6 weeks. If cracked corn lasted even one year when applied to any soil that would mean that soil was so dead not much of anything would grow.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/how-to-use-diatomaceous-earth-zw0z1304zkin.aspx

kimmq is kimmsr

I do not like to kill any living things.. but when kids (toddlers, others small children walk around this pathway with 1000s of hornets and I do not want to be responsible if anything happens). I try to do something immediately to prevent this problem. There had been a lot of cases of kids getting bad hornet stings around here...

Anyone knows of ways to control moles, voles, etc? It is bad here ... we get like so many tunnels all over the place. We tried many (electronic, traps, bubble gum, etc etc) nothing works... 8 )

RE Voles:

The solar powered electronic repellers take care of 85% of the problem if you put them no further 10-13 feet apart. The package info says they can cover 75 SF but it's more like a third of that. For the other 15%, invest in some cats.

It's hard to believe that wasps don't sting. They love to be on my grapes when they ripen. It is always a scary challenge for me to pick the grapes then. Will DE kill fire ants?

RE Wasps

Hornets are a species of wasp. If you have thousands of them, you have a big problem. The easiest non-chemical way to remove them is to trap them, but you need to set the traps well away from the walkway - I would choose the farthest corner of the property away from where people ordinarily congregate. I also don't advocate releasing them. It's too dangerous for you, and they will simply build more nests. The traps should be sealed and disposed of.

However, you will ultimately need to find and remove the nest. Sometimes that requires the services of an expert, especially if the nest is large. Different species build different kinds of nests. They can be in a tree, an eave or gutter, in any enclosed space, in a rotted tree, or under ground. We had a huge nest in a wall of our home - a plumber failed to calk around a pipe to an outside water outlet and they found their way into the wall. It took an exterminator to properly take care of the problem.

Here is a web site that shows how to make a couple of different types of really effective traps.: http://tipnut.com/wasp-trap/   These can attract a fair number of wasps and you may need to replace the traps as often as daily. But again, if you are seeing more than a small number of hornets, you should consider bringing in an expert.

I have no clue where their nest is. I only see them when the grapes are ripe.

Wasps definitely sting and their sting is very, very painful. There are a few species that don't sting - the only one I'm familiar with is a very small plant-eating wasp that causes the rose slug damage in rose gardens.

zzackery, your wasps may be visiting from a neighboring property. They can travel enormous distances for food.....

Disagree with the poster who says not to wet DE or use cracked corn.

If mixed in a slurry and sprayed on, once it dries it is just as effective as if it was applied dry, and in fact, it may be better since you can get better coverage to the undersides of leaves. The mixture should be dense enough so that you leave a white film on the leaves. The problem of course comes when it washes off the plants during rain or sprinkler use. Then you have to reapply -- if the target pests are still a problem.

And corn meal gluten is a breakdown product of cracked corn which is readily available and very inexpensive. Yes, it takes about 3 years to get the desired effect. Then, adding fresh cracked corn each year continues the cycle. We used this extensively in our award winning all organic garden very successfully. The cracked corn has also been used in the Jackson Perkins test gardens (they are the ones who told us about it) and the Cranford Rose Garden at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden (we are the ones who told them about it).

Jean001a, if you've never have had them invade the walls of your home, you probably can't imagine why you'd want to kill the nest. Where we lived in MA for many years, they were a huge problem, nesting in the eaves, gas grill, gutters, and then stinging children, pets and adults who get too close to their nests, especially later in the summer and early fall. By then, the nests could be enormous and expensive and dangerous to remove.

The queens hibernate for the winter and start new nests in the spring. Getting rid of the nests in the spring is important if they are nesting near where your family is most active. Even though they are less aggressive in the spring, they will definitely protect their nest. Having a nest in the eve on our deck, for example, was a huge problem. And the day we returned from vacation and opened the grill, a swarm of angry hornets came out and I was stung three times.

We had a huge garden and were very protective of our pollinators. We used no chemicals at all, only natural methods that were not toxic to aquatic life, birds, butterflies, or bees. Our neighbors had apiaries and their bees visited us every day. In over ten years, we were never once stung by a honeybee or carpenter bee, but the hornets, who are generally less aggressive in spring when they are busy building their nest, could be quite a challenge.

Yes, I did have a yellowjacket nest in the wall void of my house.
No one was stung as long as they didn't harass the wasps.
My dogs were fine, too, in spite of the fact that their favorite bench was about 6 feet below the wasps' entrance to their space.

Jean001a, you and your dogs were quite fortunate! We had numerous wasp stings, our dogs had some tings, and one of our cats was quite sick from a wasp sting.

Just as there are people that do not know the difference between a bee and a wasp there are apparently those that do not know that there are numerous wasps and hornets, some quite aggressive and others pretty tame. All serve a purpose in the world with most predators of many insect pests.

Almost everything will attempt to defend what it perceives to be its territory and that is where most of our problems with many of them begin, failing to recognize that. Understanding the insect and its purpose can be of much help in controlling them if that is necessary. Recognize also that there are many myths about control, probably more myths than actual workable solutions.

Meeeowww!

Most wasps sting, and hornets, and yellowjackets. Most underground *bees* don't sting and are harmless. Underground bees are not wasps, hornets, or yellowjackets, although yellowjackets do have underground nests. Except for bumblebees, most underground bees don't have black and yellow stripes like honeybees and people usually think they are flies. Bumblebees rarely sting and live in single holes so are very rarely a problem.

Whether to kill a hornet's nest depends on where it is. In an area of traffic, it needs to be dealt with. But if the nest can be left alone, it will disintegrate on its own during the winter. Because of the nature of the nest, I doubt DE would do much to a hornet's or underground yellowjacket nest. But I have been fortunate that the only yellowjacket nests on my property were able to be roped off and avoided and allowed to go away on their own, so I don't really know. But for ants (I have ones in the house) I have used a borax-honey solution successfully.

I have some food grade DE should I sprinkle it around my rose bushes? Insects have devoured some so bad there is hardly a leaf left. What other insect control methods do you use. I don't want to plant garlic and chives. I did plant rosemary but the plants are so small still. I also planted some lavender, again small plants. I need cheap and effective methods to control insects. Suggestions? I usually plant marigolds for the vegetables, but don't want to put them with the roses. I am working on building the health of my soil, which will in turn build the health of my plants to better resist bugs, but it takes time.

Moms, the first step in pest control is identifying the culprits. You need to search your roses and find the problem. You do that before applying anything.

Momscottagegarden, if your leaves are skeletonized to such an extent they look scorched and brown, there's a good bet you are dealing with some sort of leaf chomper. It's too early for Japanese beetles, so if you are not seeing snails or slugs, then some sort of larvae is more likely than not attacking your leaves. Some of them only show themselves at night, so you may not see them unless you skulk around your garden with a flashlight late into the night.

Snails and slugs are pretty easy to spot day or night. If you don't see anything during the day, you might find something during a night time garden walk that looks like a little green caterpillars munching away. In fact, these are not true caterpillars: they are probably the larvae of other insects that lay their eggs on or under your rose leaves.

One that has plagued my rose garden this time of year is the rose sawfly. They are a real pest but with a limited schedule for decimating the leaves of roses in your garden and while the leaves are ugly and won't win awards at a rose show, they generally don't kill the plant.

If you're on the East Coast, the plague happens once annually in the spring. The variety that feasts on roses on the West Coast has two complete life cycles so they are twice the trouble.

I wrote about rose sawfly larvae and have pics of the larvae on my garden blog here:
http://thewiedersgarden.blogspot.com/2013/07/unwelcome-guests-roseslug-sawfllies.html

Insecticidal soap or even just some clear liquid kitchen soap is often all you need to treat the rose slugs (my blog post explains) but DE will also be affective against either the sawfly larvae or snails or slugs. For my money, if you have it, and you have a problem, I would spread it. I spread it routinely in my garden to catch these kinds of problems early on. It also helps control fleas and other pests in the garden that can become pests for your pets as well.

That said, I do agree that identifying the pest is important, but in the meantime, DE is a good product to use for basic, routine pest control and I wouldn't hestitate to use it even if you aren't able to identify the culprit.

What about cats using the the area as a litter box? If I used red pepper, would this harm the worms? Should I just let the cats do their business?

I have two cats and they used our garden for a litter box on a daily basis. The DE will not hurt the cats. The red pepper -- I can't say if it will have any effect on any worms. But cats are clean - they bury their excrement, so I would not fret about her. I would, however, use care if you use any essential oils in the garden. Dilute the oil and keep kitty in until the spray dries if you are spraying with essential oils.

Note, I only used natural non-toxic methods in my garden... but I have never used cayenne in my garden. Some people use it with great results but I had good results with other things so I never used it. It's just a matter of personal choice. There are many options available and that is one of them. But you need to know what it's effective against and if that is your problem for it to be effective at all.

If the product used is to kill something it is not non toxic, it is toxic at least to the something being killed. Insecticidal soap is toxic because it will kill target insects (as well as many non target). Most all liquid dish "soaps" are not soaps but are detergents and are not effective insecticides. Some of those liquid dish "soaps" also include some kind of antibiotic, something you would not want to use.

Cayenne pepper is a deterrent and not an insecticide. it may help keep some insect pests away from plants.

kimmq is kimmsr

In my comment, I used the term "non-toxic". We carefully chose methods that are not toxic to aquatic life (we have a 9,000 gallon koi pond and water garden with many frogs, dragonflies and damselflies in addition to our koi), bees, and butterflies, dogs, cats, and people.

I use Seventh Generation all natural clear kitchen dish soap in my home-made yard spraying mix but any environmentally friendly clear soap is essentially comparable. These formulations are phosphate, petrochemical, perfume, and dye free. Pure castile soap is also an excellent option (and my first choice when I can find it) although it's tough to find on the grocery store shelf these days.

Dishwashing liquid is soap; it is not detergent. There is a chemical as well as functional difference.

Pure soaps are toxic to many small, soft-bodied, annoying garden pests but have no effect on bees, butterflies, aquatic life, people, or pets.

Cathy, soap is made by reacting fats with lye. Very few dishwashing liquids are made that way and are made using petrochemicals.

Any product that kills something will kill a lot of other something's. Bees, Butterflies, Aquatic life can all be harmed, and have been, by soaps as well as detergents. The dose is important and is one reason humans are not easily adversely affected. If you ate a bar of soap you would end up in the emergency room at a hospital very ill.

kimmq is kimmsr